Last spring on the steps of the State Capitol, it was possible to buy a highly metaphorical cupcake, one that would cost you just $100 million. The “Billion Dollar Bake Sale” was put together by an outfit called Save Texas Schools, and it was meant to draw attention to the…
Criswell College is comprised of a couple of buildings on a single block in East Dallas at the intersection of Gaston and Haskell. The 42-year-old institution is tiny, just 322 students, but deeply religious. Its mission is centered on preparing students for the ministry, which it does according to the…
Just in case you’ve forgotten, you don’t need a photo ID to vote in Texas. Republicans did push a measure through the Legislature last year requiring exactly that, but the law was challenged and ultimately put on hold in August by a federal court, which concluded the rule would effectively…
The Donald Trump-Mark Cuban feud has been relatively quiet for a while now, but the Mavs owner threw down the gauntlet last night for his billionaire arch-nemesis. Cuban, appearing in a painfully long segment on Fox 4’s 9p.m. newscast, which inexplicably included a basketball hoop and quickly descended into a…
It was a sweltering afternoon in early July when several DEA agents and police officers showed up at the house at 1215 Lebanon Avenue, a tiny, burnt-orange home fronting some railroad tracks in Oak Cliff. They weren’t sure what to expect. It was just a friendly knock-and-talk, meaning they had…
In this week’s edition, the cover story chronicles the short life and ambiguous death of Lightning Medicine Cloud, the rare white buffalo born to Hunt County rancher Arby Little Soldier. To the Lakota Oyate, the animal was prophecy, heralding the return of the prophet White Buffalo Calf Woman, and a…
On Halloween night, an 8-year-old boy walked to the front door of the house at 1703 Danube Drive, a couple of blocks from the Cedar Crest Golf Course. It’s not clear from a police report whether he was trick-or-treating or simply visiting the home, as he did from time to…
At first blush, it wouldn’t seem that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott have much in common. The former is an ex-KGB agent who, through a bizarre combination of dictatorial repression and sheer animal magnetism, has cemented his status as Russia’s de facto leader for life…
On Sunday evening, firefighters arrived at a natural gas well in rural Johnson County to find an SUV engulfed in flames. Inside was the body of Robert Excell Dodson II, 44, a father of three and the vice president of Dallas’ Buckley Oil Company. It was unclear how long he…
Update, January 29, 2013: A Dallas County grand jury has declined to indict Romo. On Tuesday, Ryan Adam Romo, an 18-year-old Highland Park High School senior and star baseball player, was charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony. Romo is accused of raping a HPHS classmate after…
It hasn’t been a terribly good few months for Dallas attorney Tom Corea. He has been sued by several former clients who claim he stole their settlement money, indicted by Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and stripped of his law license by the Texas State Bar. At the risk…
Sixto Salinas and his 18-year-old daughter were about to enter Sunny Food Mart at 9 p.m. Tuesday when they were nearly knocked over by two men rushing out of the store. They gleaned from a witness inside that the two men had just robbed the store (police classified it as…
Long ago, a holy woman came to the Lakota Oyate in the Black Hills. She gave them a sacred pipe, and she taught them how to live, how to pray, how to honor the pipe, and through it, how to become a living prayer. And when they learned everything she…
You wouldn’t know it by watching the news or reading the paper, but America’s banks are on the largest crime spree the country has ever known. Let’s go to the highlight reel, shall we? In July, Wells Fargo paid a $175 million settlement after the feds caught its brokers systematically…
Electricity is so cheap right now that for some generators it doesn’t even pay to make it. At the end of August, Dallas-based Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU, announced it would mothball two units at its Monticello coal-fired plant for six to seven months. ERCOT, the state’s grid manager,…
Dallas is a sadder place now that Delonte West is no longer a Maverick. The man played solid D, could score some points off the bench, and was a generally entertaining presence. Sadder still is the state of West’s job search. He took to Twitter today to beg a team…
A bizarre and still murky series of events ended yesterday when longtime DISD administrator Shirley Ison-Newsome officially stepped aside, just four days after she announced, then promptly rescinded, her resignation in favor of retirement. Ison-Newsome has been a powerful, polarizing figure during 37 years with the district, and her departure…
On Thursday afternoon, patrol officers performed a routine traffic stop in Oak Cliff. They found that the driver, 24-year-old Jesus Gonzalez, wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was driving without a license, and was in the country illegally. They also found a little bonus prize: 15 AK-style assault rifles in the…
Yesterday, speaking before a gathering of pastors in Tampa, First Baptist’s Robert Jeffress stopped short of endorsing a particular candidate in the presidential race. Such overt political advocacy could risk his church’s tax-exempt status — not that he has let such concerns hinder him in the past. That doesn’t mean…
Yesterday morning, in a vote split along partisan lines, Dallas County narrowly approved domestic partner benefits for Dallas County employees. But the historic vote was accompanied by an odd incident that most every media outlet in town commented on: County Comissioner Maurine Dickey, as you can see in the Dallas…
Late Sunday night, at 10:37 p.m., 911 operator received a call from a storage facility on Willowbrook Road, a dilapidated stretch of office and warehouse space in Northwest Dallas. The caller, 22-year-old Trevis Henderson, said he was in a fight with two men who said he owed them money. The…
The Dallas County Republican Party dropped something of a bombshell Tuesday on the campaign of Robert Miklos, the Democrat challenging incumbent Ken Sheets for Texas House District 107, covering East Dallas and slivers of Mesquite and Garland. Party chairman Wade Emmert sent a phone message to voters — and an…
